


Promises Written on Water, Lies Spoken in Smoke

by TheDaysOfGold



Series: Psycho Pass - Between the Lines [4]
Category: Psycho-Pass
Genre: episode 18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:34:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21953023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDaysOfGold/pseuds/TheDaysOfGold
Summary: Episode: 18Timestamp: 03:49The airship has crashed, and Makishima is gone.It falls to Division One to recapture Makishima alive. That's a simple fact, but it doesn't make the relationships among the crew any easier to manage. A stress-riddled Ginoza is left with picking up the pieces of this case, rallying his crew into action, and juggling the orders from above; Kogami must be dismissed from the case.There are only so many people you can turn to in situations like these, but a long talk with a father might as well be a place to start.Basically, a retelling of some scenes from episode 18. Just going a little deeper into what the characters might have been thinking during this conversation. I own nothing from Psycho Pass.
Relationships: Ginoza Nobuchika/Kougami Shinya
Series: Psycho Pass - Between the Lines [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1566241
Kudos: 22





	Promises Written on Water, Lies Spoken in Smoke

“One other thing,” Chief Kasei says, glancing out of the car’s window at the wreckage caused by the crashed airship that had been carrying the previously apprehended Shogo Makashima. Ginoza keeps his eyes on her, as if, for once, he could possibly fathom some sort of emotion from the woman’s robotic face. “Enforcer Kogami, I'm ordering you to take him off the Makashima case and put him under strict supervision.”

Ginoza stutters. “For what reason?”

“I already answered that.” Kasei sighs, and it’s a sound Ginoza knows well. She’s got a way to pen him in and tie him down, a way to get him working on _her_ objective, as if she were as absolute and powerful as Sybil itself. But he tries not to think about that, for fear of a clouded hue. “Your top priority is capturing Shogo Makashima _alive_. That way, you might be able to sweep your Kagari blunder under the rug.” She finishes.

_Ah, there’s the manipulation, moving pieces on the board like a chess grandmaster._

Unable to step foot onto the Makashima crash site, Ginoza agrees and returns to the MWPSB offices with the rest of Division One for a briefing. Or rather, to relay the orders given to him from Kasei. Some days, Ginoza wonders if he’s an Inspector, or if he’s more like the Enforcers, just another lap-dog answering to the orders of a master higher up.

“Starting now, Division Two will look into Kagari’s disappearance.” He says, standing at the helm of the office. The walls are grey, matching the blacked-out screens of the terminals when powered down, and it’d be an awfully dreary sight if not for the magnificent blue out the far window. On the forty-first floor, days like this are always beautiful.

“As for us at Division One, we’re in charge of locating Shogo Makashima.” He says to the crew, but Kasei’s orders echo in his mind. “Oh, and Enforcer Kogami, I want you to stay here. You can help Shion with the lab analysis.”

No one in the crew responds, or at least, not in any visible way. But Akane does, because that girl wears her heart on her sleeve. She turns a confused stare Ginoza’s way, wondering why the only one who knows the taste of their prey’s blood is being ordered to sit around the grey halls and check over documents. Surely, her superior can’t believe that this is the best task for Kogami?

“Search the data for any new leads.” He continues, as if answering her internal thoughts. But then the truer explanation comes. “These orders come from the top.”

Kogami doesn’t argue, because he never does when it comes to these things. If he’s loyal to nothing else, he’s loyal to Gino. But he does show a crack in the stoicism. You’d be able to spot it, if you knew what you were looking for. If you were his old partner, and even older friend.

Ginoza watches as Kogami reaches into his left pocket, and with a single smooth movement, pulls a cigarette from the packet and lights it, taking a long drag. “Well, I can’t be the only one who thinks it’s strange that the chief just took me off the case, right?” He breathes out, pocketing the lighter. “I mean, we’re already short on man-power, so it can’t be that. None of it makes any sense to me. The only thing that matters to the chief now is Makashima’s safety. Whether he goes on another killing spree or not, that’s a secondary concern. We’re not hunting. It’s more like she’s put us on protective duty.”

Ginoza hears the venom in the last two words, because if there’s one thing Kogami hates most, it’s an abuse of justice.

_But what would you have me do, Ko?_

Kogami continues, leant against the work station as if he doesn’t care, but Ginoza sees it. He’s boiling inside. “The top brass have no intention of putting Makashima on trial. Sure, they want us to recapture him, but I think that’s only so they can use him for some other purpose that we don’t know anything about yet. Am I wrong?"

Ginoza sighs. _When are you ever wrong?_

“What do you base this on?” He asks instead, because in the presence of the whole crew, certain facades must be maintained.

Kogami looks directly at his old partner when he speaks. “I told you what Makashima said when he called me. He said he’d learnt the true,” a pause. “ _Nature_ , of what the Sibyl System really is. He discovered something about its inner workings that none of us are supposed to know anything about.”

“Please, he’s just bluffing!” Ginoza argues, unable to keep the tone level. “And since when have we taken psychopaths at their word?”

_It’s thoughts like these keep your psycho pass in the red zone. You can’t doubt the very foundations that our society stands upon, no matter how much it makes sense. We must uphold the system._

Kogami’s answer is even. “It adds up.”

_Being an Enforcer, I can doubt the very foundations that our society stands upon. Sybil may not know it, but by giving me this Enforcer life, she’s also given me the freedom to doubt._

“If someone in charge of the Sibyl System was feeding Makashima information,” Kogami continues, despite Ginoza’s outburst. “He could have used that information to escape, but instead of getting angry with Makashima’s betrayal, this person has simply become obsessed with the idea of using his skills to his own ends.”

Ginoza feels the need to play Devil’s advocate to such an outrageous idea built upon nothing more than conjecture. “But the Sibyl System is guaranteed to be free from corruption by any person or organisation. No one has that kind of control over it!”

Kogami looks at him. _What’s the worth of a ‘guarantee’ in this society? They can’t be scanned. They can’t be measured. If they can’t be recognised by Sibyl, then they might as well cease to exist._

“I think right now Makashima is the only one of us who knows if that’s how Sibyl really works.” He answers, because no matter how much he and his old partner spar with words, the truth is simple; Makashima is out, and this case will not end like the rest of them do. “Let’s look at the facts; Makashima was transported by air with only drone guards instead of in a paddy wagon. That isn’t normal. They say he was alone, but what was the body removed from the crash? They’ve already wiped all mention of it in the official record, but we all saw them moving it.”

Masaoka can feel the weight in the room, and it presses on old bones in ways that the youth around him has yet to learn. Sitting down, he responds. “I don’t think any of us are buying what they're trying to sell, Ko, but if there’s a conspiracy like you think there is, our Inspectors ain’t gonna know any more than you. You're barking up the wrong tree.”

Kogami concedes the argument. “You make a good point there.”

And then he puts out his cigarette and steps from the room, because the conversation has nowhere to go and his anger is bubbling like Kagari’s freshly poured champagne used to.

Ginoza has to look away, but Akane isn’t as emotionally invested in this corporate cull-or-be-culled killing floor, and her psycho pass always remains stable. Always flawless. Ginoza isn’t really sure why. After her first case shooting an Enforcer, after watching her friend’s throat bleed red, after bearing witness to that nightmare _again_ in the memory scoop, still she remains perfectly clear. He wonders if she’s a special case, like Shogo Makashima. Maybe she’s the girl with the Hue that will never cloud? The Incorruptible Princess to his Psychotic Prince?

Or, maybe, she just doesn’t know what the darkness at the bottom of the swamp looks like. Ginoza’s seen that darkness, he sees it in Kogami’s haunted eyes every day, but she can’t, because she doesn’t even know what to look for. He remembers Kogami’s words, words from the day he was demoted to Enforcer, and they sound as if they're describing her, all these years later.

_I'm just an enforcer who’s got nothing in this world left to lose._

Ginoza didn’t take that statement at face value then, and he certainly doesn’t now.

_Surely, our friendship was something worth keeping up the fight? That’s how this partnership ought to work, idiot._

Akane runs after him, because she always does, and it stings Ginoza a little, the fact that she takes his side every time, that she offers _him_ a confidant every time, but she’s never looked at him that way. And he knows, she never will.

It leaves only three in the room. Kunizuka has the myopic wisdom to evacuate from the room, informing her superior that she’s retreating to have lunch.

The failed father and his stress-riddled son are the only ones left in the office. Masaoka stands, hands in pockets. He can’t keep still with these toxic politics at play. “I can’t be the only one,” he opens, leaning back on the desk because old bones don’t hold up all day. “Can’t help but think the chief is treatin’ us like dogs, and that this mission is her way of throwing us a ball to play with.”

Gino pulls out a chair, _Kogami’s chair_ , and lands into it with a heavy sigh. Maybe if he sits here, he’ll absorb some of that brilliance that his friend has always had?

_Yeah, probably not._

“So, what am I supposed to do then?” He asks, slipping off his glasses so that maybe, _maybe_ he can see clearly for a while.

_I can’t believe I'm coming to you for help, you of all people. But with mum gone, and Kogami always just out of my reach, and the skills of Rookie-Akane surpassing mine at a rate of knots, who else can I turn to? There’s no one else in my life._

“What’s the right response for an Inspector in my situation?”

“There is no right answer.” Masaoka answers with the confidence of a man who’s learnt this lesson. His eyes are ahead, as if men with wrinkles around their temples can see further than the horizon. “All you can do now is compromise.”

And in comparison to that distinguished age, that weathered, handsome face, that old-school, tried-and-tested sensibility, Ginoza looks like a boy again. _Feels_ like a boy again.

He lets out a sigh, because this is the ultimate truth, then reaches into his jacket pocket for a cleaning cloth. He rubs the lenses. Maybe, maybe, maybe I’ll see the way out of this. If it were all just a little clearer.

The state of the crew is dressed in the ornaments they keep on their desks; stacked up books about philosophy and classic literature on Kogami’s desk, held up by empty coffee cans and overflowing ashtrays; signs of an unorderly, yet brilliant mind.

Masaoka’s desk is no different; a Daruma doll with neither eye coloured in, because he has only one goal, and it’s too lofty to bother betting on an old cliché like that. To colour one eye feels like committing to that promise, and he knows too much water has passed under the bridge between him and his son for salvation to ever eventuate. Simply, he can’t bring himself to colour one eye, because the other would never match.

Across the aisle, hidden amongst the files she keeps, Kunizuka has scores of music for rock songs and punk ballads, and classical pieces and contemporary pop. Not just because Sibyl approves of these genres, but because she is a lover of music in all its ugly, beautiful forms. But they're reminders of a life long retired, as are the pink nail polishes that she never uses, but can’t quite bring herself to throw into the trash can between her and the recently vanished Kagari.

His desk tells the hardest story to swallow. It’s messy, unkept, holding all the sings of someone constantly distracted. His gaming console is still open, probably uncharged, games hidden in all the cracks and crevices of his desk so Gino won’t find and confiscate them if he catches his subordinate off-duty once more. Kunizuka had once tried to clean up after him, when his mess began spilling onto her side, but for all the laid-back attitude Kagari comes with, she was surprised when he’d almost bitten off her hand. If there’s one thing she wouldn’t have pegged Kagari for, it’s possessiveness over his things. But then again, he’d never had much.

She’d told everyone that this was the reason she wouldn’t clean up his desk now that he was gone, the fear that he might come back and exact some revenge for her organising his space. But they all know this isn’t true. She doesn’t stay away because she’s afraid, or maybe she is; afraid that if she does, he’ll never be back to make it messy again.

“Hey, listen to me Nobuchika,” Masaoka continues, and it pulls Ginoza back to the current moment. His father’s words come cautiously, spoken softly on a shaky voice.

Registering the use of the name, Ginoza responds, but he can’t bring himself to look up, busying his hands with the cloth and glasses and hoping this too will busy his mind from all the demons that come with the sound of that old, rusty voice. It sounds like strong whiskey, smoke and dangerous, dangerous nostalgia.

“What is it now?” He asks, and though there’s venom in the tone, it’s only surface level.

Masaoka turns to look at him. “Watch your back, son,”

That tone is quietly confident, rock steady like a father should be, and it surprises Ginoza. It draws his eyes up, still a little boy looking up to his father, and his hands still, glasses forgotten.

“Like I was trying to say,” Masaoka continues, that confidence reinstalled with the realisation that his words can still get through to his son. They’d been so cold to one another, spoken so little, the walls built so high, and he’d never really been very good at this heart-to-heart thing anyway. “This whole situation is just a game of fetch between a master and her dogs. And if you don’t do what she wants, you’ll get punished. If I were you, I’d try to step outside of the pecking order and take on a more neutral role. Don’t be dog or master.”

“And be what?” Ginoza asks, because there really isn’t another option left, not in his analogy and not in the Bureau.

“Become like the ball, forever rolling, bouncing back and forward between the two opposing sides,” Masaoka answers, tossing his hand up and down, as if this path is particularly familiar to him. “I know it sounds a bit humiliating, but that’s the only way to stop the politics from wearing you down. It’s the wisest path to walk.”

Ginoza watches him, because if there’s one thing he could never fathom, it’s the inner machinations of a human mind. How can he, a disciple so devoted to the Sibyl System, the entity that can reveal the splendour of a human’s soul, have no idea what people are really thinking? Would he get to the end of his life and still have no idea what any of them were thinking?

His father sits, because the next part of the conversation is going to be hard. Ginoza seems to realise this, and when his father turns full attention on him, he looks down. Cleaning the lenses once more, mind returning to the glasses. Masaoka takes a breath. “I hate to be blunt, but I think this case is getting to be too much for you.” That opening statement seems to go down without argument, so he continues under the same steam. “Instead of taking on more than you can handle, roll around without drawing anyone’s attention. Make yourself useless to the PSB.”

“You know,” Ginoza answers, and there’s a sort of confidence in that tone too, a confidence born of realisation. “That’s the worst career advice I've ever been given.”

_Do you have not a shred of honour left?_

Masaoka would laugh at the flat drawl, if his son hadn’t meant it so much. “Hell, that’s office politics. I was hoping you’d figure it out yourself. You're good at that stuff.”

Ginoza slips the glasses back on. _Yeah, only when compared to you._

He lets out a sigh. “So much for wisdom,”

_You're still a foolish old man._

He stands, because they don’t have time for the melodrama any more. He’s had his moment of weakness, and now it’s time to steel some stoicism and take the situation on its new terms. Ginoza knows he doesn’t have the liberty to be a master, and he certainly won’t drop himself to becoming a dog, but he hasn’t quite given up all hope yet. He won’t resort to the ball, rolling around, useless.

_I’ve already got that last point in spades._

And yet, he quietly wishes his father has possessed such wisdom ten years back. Maybe he had. Maybe he, like Ginoza does now, chose not to follow this eternal bit of degrading acumen?

_You might throw in the towel and put your bets on Kogami, but I haven’t given up the fight yet. It’s not in my nature to mope around, and neither will I sit idle while the dogs bite and the masters pull the leash tight. If nothing more, I’ll find some decisiveness in all this moral grey._

“We can’t afford to have Kogami on desk duty while run around the city chasing Makashima,” he answers, and though he turns away when he says this, Masaoka can hear the mask slip back into place in the tone of his voice.

“Even if Kogami’s a dog that bites his master?” He asks in reply, remaining seated.

_You're biting off more than you can chew, Nobu._

“When it comes to sniffing out Makashima’s trail, there’s no hunting dog at the PSB with a nose as good as Kogami’s,” he answers, looking over his friend’s work station.

_Empty coffee cans, plastic bottles and instant ramen cups from the cafeteria downstairs; how do you get anything done here, Kogami? Are you so brilliant that this mess doesn’t even lay a finger of interference in your thought process? Damn, I really am still miles behind you._

“That detective instinct you talk about,” he says to his father, glancing away again. Unlike Akane, who never really worked out how to read his face, Ginoza knows that his father has always been able to decipher every steeled expression, at least, all the ones Ginoza doesn’t want to reveal, and never the ones he does. “I don’t think it got passed onto me. If I did, it would have shown itself by now,”

“But the chief tied your hands,” his father pleads, though, he wants to reply with something else.

_Don’t get caught up in all of this. If you take this killer down, then there’s just another one tomorrow. A detective’s work is never finished, so don’t think this is the finale to the series. It’s not worth watching you get haunted by the ghosts you fear most._

The Inspector’s words come back quickly. “If we can set Kogami lose, we’ll get Makashima.”

_God knows I can’t track him down. My job is to liberate the only man capable._

“But how,” Ginoza’s continues, and in an instant his mind is in a thousand places at once, thinking through a thousand plans at once, and yet none at all. He brings stormcloud eyes back to the present moment. “That’s the million-dollar question I need to find an answer for fast.”

And then comes the idea. There _is_ someone an Inspector can lean on in a time of crisis; someone who knows the same corporate pains.

24.

23.

22.

21.

20.

19.

The elevator takes them down. Kogami stands at his right, ever calm and ever present in the moment that matters, and though Akane shows her visible nervousness, her eyes flicking from her superior to her Enforcer and back again as the elevator drops them towards the basement, she’s not the only one who’s nervous. But Ginoza doesn’t show that. He’s got few skills when it comes to these things, but he’s long since been able to don a mask to conceal truer emotions.

The doors let them out at the bottom, a building always so commanding of those within it, but Ginoza feels at least a modicum of confidence when he sees Inspector Ayoanagi, head of Division Two.

“Inspector Ginoza,” she says, that signature level-headed cockiness ever-evident in her voice and in that hand-on-hip stance. “I didn’t figure you for someone to come up with such a radical idea,”

With his face hidden from Kogami and Akane, Ginoza can gift himself the liberty of a smirk.

_You know full-well I'm a straight arrow, Risa._

But she means it kindly, because she always does. Of all the mutineer-bent and order disobeying members of the PSB, she’s always been steadfast, like an anchor in a turbulent sea. It’s a shame Kozuki got in the way, because if he hadn’t, they’d undoubtedly be something more than mere eye-to-eye colleagues. But, that’s not how history played out, and Ginoza doesn’t really like to think about the future until it’s arrived.

He approaches, and keeps the smirk from his voice. “Desperate times,” he offers, but then swaps to sincerity. “I wanted to say thank you. I know this is a risk for Division Two.”

_And a risk for you. I wouldn’t put you in this position if I didn’t trust you as much as I do._

Maybe she understands this subtext, maybe she doesn’t, but she drops the cocky gait and meets his tone. “No worries. Between Kagari’s disappearance and Makashima’s escape, something fishy is going on. I don’t mind shaking things up if it helps us solve both cases.”

And there’s something in the low light, in Ginoza’s expressionless face, that she understands well. He’s thanking her, for the case, for taking Kogami off his hands, for keeping up the pretence of their current arrangement. And for far, far more. With Ginoza, there’s always more. Beneath that rule-abiding chill and eternal faith in the system, he’s always been far too forgiving, and far too kind. It’ll probably be his downfall one day, one vital day.

“Alright everyone,” he says, turning to address the group. “After the attack, the whole Criminal Investigation Department is down two enforcers. At a time like this, we can’t afford to have Kogami sitting around doing busy-work at the lab. So I had a thought, and Inspector Ayoanagi agreed with me. She’s going to let you switch places with one of her team’s enforcers.”

_And it’s not like I’d leave you with anyone else, Kogami. The way she used to pull you into line, I’ve never seen another woman do that, and I doubt I ever will again._

“You’ll go with them to get to the bottom of Kagari’s disappearance,” _though, we both know that’s not what you’ll be doing._ “And a Division Two enforcer will come with us to work on the Makashima case.”

“We need a new approach on Kagari,” Ayoanagi adds. “Having someone who knew the guy is the best idea I’ve heard yet. Kogami, I know you're good, but I don’t want you pulling any stupid stunts.”

He closes his eyes in agreement. “Yes ma’am,”

_This is like those old Academy days all over again. The three of us causing mischief. Though, things really have changed, for Gino to be the one inciting it._

“At least, while my eyes are on you.” She adds with a wink, tell-tale intelligence under-lacing her voice.

He smiles. Yep, none of us have changed.

And then they're off. Ginoza and Akane watch on as Kogami is taken to the Division Two paddy wagon, and the first Inspector breathes a sigh of relief. _At least now we’ll have a fighting chance. Finally, it’s all going right._

And then it all goes very, very wrong. Because there are eyes watching. There are always eyes watching. Through the eyes of drones, down the barrel of the dominator, in the street scanners and the isolation facilities and the public bathrooms if she so desires; Sibyl is always watching.

The sirens come on all at one, and Ginoza’s stomach drops to the floor.

**Author's Note:**

> A little Christmas present to the Psycho-Pass community on here, and to newcomers. All are welcome!
> 
> I wanted to do this scene from the very beginning, but this episode flows so well from scene to scene, I found it hard to cut it down into what could be considered a reasonable chapter length. In the future, I'd like to tackle the scene of Kasei's ultimatum; where she instructs Ginoza to shoot Kogami. I didn't want to tack that scene onto the end of this one, because I feel that both deserve their own weight.
> 
> So, check back for that little addition in the future.
> 
> Happy reading everyone. If you have time, please give me some love in the comment section.


End file.
